


Particular Arrangements

by DictionaryWrites



Series: Solavellan [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Banter, Dalish Elven Culture and Customs, Gen, Humor, Non-Sexual Intimacy, POV Cullen Rutherford, Platonic Cuddling, Sharing a Bed, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 08:35:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20871308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: The Dalish don’t sleep alone. Cullen never really thought about that, until someone else mentioned it.(Platonic bedsharing with the Inquisitor and the party. Some very lightly implied Solavellan.)





	Particular Arrangements

Leliana had picked the tower. Josephine had decorated it.

It was… lovely, really. There were balconies on each side, and even with the fortress still in a state of relative disrepair, it was beautifully decorated. The bed was Orlesian-made, with shimmering blue silk sheets, and Lavellan didn’t think he’d ever seen a desk so grand in his life.

“It’s away from the rest of Skyhold,” Cullen said. “So that you can be alone, and it is easily defensible. No assassins will be able to reach you up here.”

“Yes,” Lavellan said. “Yes, I… I see.”

\--

It was some weeks later that it came up in conversation.

They were settled around the biggest table in the cellar for a card game that Cullen couldn’t remember the name of, because it was a tongue-twister in Nevarran. It was rare, that so many people were here in fortress and actually willing to play. Josephine and Cassandra weren’t here, which was a shame, because Josephine was in Val Royeaux with Cassandra acting as her guard, and the Herald was out around the fortress with Krem and the Chargers, checking in with refugees. He liked to do that sort of thing personally, which Cullen could respect.

He looked around the table, sipping at his beer. Varric and Dorian were sitting at one end of the table; the Iron Bull was leaning back beside Vivienne, with Sera perching on the back of his chair with her hands braced on his horns to keep herself balanced; Rainier was turning to speak with Cole, explaining the cards to him as Cole looked over his shoulder at them. Solas was sitting beside Cullen, which was…

Well.

He had never actually said anything rude to Cullen. He was just odd. 

“Where is the Herald sleeping tonight?” Solas asked during a lull in the game, not looking up from the cards he was examining.

“Ain’t he sleeping with you?” Bull asked, turning his head.

“I don’t believe so,” Solas said. “I will be walking from the fortress some time after midnight, to take my sleep elsewhere. He oughtn’t sleep in the elements with me, not when you have the long ride to meet the Ambassador and the Seeker tomorrow morning.”

“Shit,” Bull muttered.

Cullen felt himself frown.

“Your bed, I presume, is unfit?”

“Well,” Bull said. “It’s…” He glanced to Dorian.

Dorian cleared his throat. “It is rather crowded, with three of us. Varric?”

“I’m, uh,” Varric said, scratching the back of his head. “Meeting a friend.”

“A _friend_?” Dorian asked, arching an eyebrow. “A friend like—”

“A _friend_, Sparkler,” Varric said, waving him off. “What about the Iron Lady?”

“I have a meeting to attend via sending crystal,” Vivienne said quietly. Cullen thought he actually saw regret in her face. “It is urgent, I fear, but I will need my bedroom for the night – the magic and the noise would keep him awake, anyway.”

“I’m getting laid,” Sera said. “Least twice. No room for another elf in my bed tonight. Well. Not _him_, anyway. And Blackwall won’t say, but he’s got this stable girl from—”

“Blackwall can say it himself, thanks!” growled Rainier.

“I’m sorry,” Cullen said, “but, um, what’s wrong with the Herald’s own bedroom?”

There was a long silence as everyone turned to look at him, and Cullen kept his place, pressing his lips together. Bull and Vivienne looked at one another. Dorian narrowed his eyes, looking thoughtful. Varric wiped a hand over his mouth.

Cole whispered, “The silence sticks to the skin, crawls inside and calcifies, so cold, so quiet, like a crypt, no one living in it, no one… He can’t do it, not like this, can’t sleep in the silent sorrow, and so he creeps down the stairs to where he will be safe. He’s safe, with someone else there. It’s where he can find peace.”

Cullen stared at him. It was the most, he thought, that Cole had ever said to him.

He didn’t really know what to make of it.

“The Inquisitor is Dalish, Commander,” Solas said finally. “He was raised in an active clan for the whole of his life. The Dalish are nomadic by nature, moving their aravels and sleeping in caravans, tents, or under the stars. It is rare for most Dalish to sleep alone. Until coming to Skyhold, Lavellan had never had his own tent before, let alone a secluded bedroom in a tower. Sleeping alone in an empty room is as strange and unnatural to him as you might find sleeping in a tree canopy, or curled against the side of a halla.”

“But…” Cullen started, his lips parting. “But I always— I mean, _I_ always slept in dormitories, it’s a luxury to have your own room, isn’t it? It’s… _nice_.”

“I bet you dreamed of having your own bedroom since you were a young man,” Dorian said softly. “It’s a sign of independence, of authority, of richesse. Not so, for him. If someone sleeps alone with his people, it’s a sign that they’re in exile.”

“The married sleep together,” Vivienne murmured, “but even the Dalish elders sleep with the clan’s children curled beside them, in groups together beneath the stars. Perhaps a widow sleeps alone in her tent; perhaps the Keeper sleeps some nights alone, but never with _walls_ between them. Never in a tower, away from anybody else.”

“You shoulda seen him, Curly, the first night he was in the tower,” Varric said. “He hadn’t slept the night before. Looked like nug shit warmed up. He sat down next to me at breakfast and just—” Varric snapped his fingers.

“So, everyone has just been… He just sleeps in your beds?” Cullen asked. “All of you?”

“Sure.”

“Indeed.”

“Yeah.”

“Duh.”

“Yes.”

Cullen was quiet for a second.

Rainier said, after a moment, “Couldn’t he just sleep in Cassandra’s bed, in the barracks?”

“Raises too many eyebrows,” Varric said, shaking his head. “At least when he sleeps with one of us, there’s deniability, you know. That it was a meeting or a discussion that overran. And there’s security in it, I guess. Is Lace Harding here?”

“She’s in Crestwood,” Dorian murmured.

“Why didn’t he just… _say_?” Cullen asked. “Why didn’t he just ask?”

“My dear Commander,” said Vivienne, “have you ever known Inquisitor Lavellan to ask for anything that wasn’t for somebody else?”

“I… No,” Cullen admitted. “I haven’t, actually.”

\--

“Er,” Cullen said to Lavellan, who turned to look at him as he undid his gauntlets. They were ceremonial, really – according to Leliana, he wore them because they were thick enough to hide the glow of the Anchor underneath, whereas normally it showed through his leather gloves. He didn’t like people to stare at it. “Inquisitor.”

“Cullen,” Lavellan said. “Problem?”

“Um,” Cullen said, “well. Everyone in Skyhold seems to be having a lot of, er, that is to say, _you_ know…” Cullen lowered his voice. “Sex.”

Lavellan stared at him. “Right,” he said, finally. “Well, I’m afraid there’s not much I can do about that, Cullen.”

“What? No! No, I mean, I don’t want you to tell anybody to stop!”

“Good, I wasn’t planning to.”

“_No!_ I just meant… Our… friends. Varric, and Bull, Dorian, Sera, Blackwall…”

“All together? That’s ambitious.”

“_And_,” Cullen said, trying to ignore the increasingly hot glow that was burning his cheeks, “Solas is doing one of his Fade things, and Vivienne has a meeting. So there’s no one who can… And Solas mentioned, well, everybody mentioned— You could sleep in my bed, if you wanted. I have work to do, so I can just, you could just sleep up in my…”

He trailed off.

“I don’t want to keep you from sleeping, Cullen,” Lavellan said quietly, with a small smile. He looked embarrassed, Cullen thought, but he did a good job of hiding it as he focused on taking off the gauntlets, and Cullen could see the green glint at his palm. Lavellan quickly turned it over, turning away. “It’s no bother. I’ll sleep in camp with the Chargers.”

“I’ve never shared a bed with another man,” Cullen blurted out.

“It’s very dangerous,” Lavellan said sagely. “As I’m sure you can imagine, if our feet even brush against one another, we’re obligated by law to have sex at least twice.”

Cullen swallowed. “What?”

“Joking,” Lavellan said, patting his shoulder.

“I would… It really wouldn’t bother me,” Cullen said. “If you wanted to sleep with me. I know you didn’t, you didn’t ask before, which means I’m probably not someone you want to… Not that it’s really a thing of _wanting_, but I—”

“I didn’t mention it because I didn’t want to put you or Josephine in a strange position,” Lavellan said. “I know you didn’t prepare to have a Dalish elf with such odd habits as your Inquisitor. It’s bad enough that I don’t wear the expensive boots that Josephine keeps buying for me.”

“You can stay with me,” Cullen said, glancing down at Lavellan’s feet, the soles wrapped but the rest bare. Sera had painted his toenails green. “Really.”

Lavellan smiled at him. It was a very small smile, but it was genuine and warm. “Thank you, Cullen,” he murmured. “It’s very kind of you.”

\--

Lavellan slept shirtless, in just leggings. He barely moved, in his sleep: he slept on one side, facing in toward the bed, and he actually untied his hair. There was a lot more of it than Cullen expected – it was very long, and thick, when it was allowed out from the bun, and fanned out on the pillow.

“You were joking,” Cullen had said when they were lying down. “About having sex.”

“Cullen,” Lavellan mumbled, eyes closed, “do you _want_ to have sex with me?”

“No, thank you.”

“Are you even attracted to men?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then if you don’t mind,” Lavellan had said, yawning, “I’ll be taking sex off the table.”

Which was fine. It was fine.

Except…

When Cullen woke up, he was curled right up against Lavellan’s body, his face pressed into the elf’s hair. He didn’t know what shampoo he used, but it smelled _wonderful_, sweetly fragrant, and Lavellan himself was warm and lightly muscled.

“Oh, Maker,” Cullen said. What time was it? Still the middle of the night, still—

“It’s fine,” Lavellan said, voice thick with sleep.

“I’m so sorry, I was asleep, I didn’t mean to—”

Lavellan patted his shoulder. “Dorian uses my chest as a pillow. Sera always sleeps on _top_ of me, usually with one of her feet shoved into my armpit. Blackwall holds me against his chest like some people hold a pillow. This is fine.”

It was… surprisingly nice, actually.

Feeling Lavellan’s body beside his, even when he extricated himself, it was… It was comforting, in a way. Warm. Lavellan smelled nice, and when Cullen leaned into him, he stroked Cullen’s back through his pyjamas, and it was…

Nice.

\--

“Who’s your favourite person to share a bed with?” Cullen asked, one night.

“Solas,” Lavellan said, without missing a beat.

“What?” Varric demanded.

“_Why_?” Dorian asked, looking more fascinated than offended.

“He hums old songs, sometimes, in his sleep,” Lavellan said. “It’s comforting.”

Solas coughed, delicately.

“Do your feet ever touch?” Cullen asked.

Lavellan threw an apple at him, and Cullen laughed as he caught it. His ears went red, but it was fine – so did the Inquisitor’s.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Feel free to hit up [my ask on Tumblr,](http://patricianandclerk.tumblr.com/ask) to talk about DA in general, and definitely to recommend blogs to follow! I am open for requests (for Origins, II, and Inq). I also run a no-drama Dragon Age Discord, which [you can join here.](https://discordapp.com/invite/ttgP5v8) Please comment if you can! 
> 
> And yes, it's a nod to Peep Show! That's legit my favourite Peep Show bit.


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